lands end to john ogroats

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

The prevailing winds tend to be from the south west. So doing it from
Lands End and going north is probably easier.

--
Who needs a life when you've got Unix? :-)
Email: [email hidden], John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
Web : http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk - The Ultimate BMW Homepage!
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<[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

thanks

russ

This is a good place to start, you'll pick up a lot of good advice by seeing
what others have done (and doing it, or not!),

http://www.users.waitrose.com/~ianclare/links.htm

and as you'll see there isnt a 'standard' route. The CTC have 3 routes,
which are probably the closest to a standard anyone has come up with, and
there are also books you can buy with very detailed routes, and I suspect
our route, fully mapped down to the smallest lane, would be available for a
small charity fee (??Rob??) ....note, our route was designed to minimise
hills so its not just any old route:-)

Your choice of route may well be influenced by whether you will be
prebooking accom (and of what type, for example B&B or Hostel) or just
chancing it, and/or will you be camping, and if so 'rough' camping. or on
sites?

Enjoy, we did.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

I've top posted this as it's Rob who is referred to in the post from
Tumbleweed

- we did JOGLE this year and have a complete extract of the OS that's
designed to print as 204 A5 pages to fit a barbag map case .. as suggested a
modest charity donation and we would produce a CD for you.

RG

"Tumbleweed" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

thanks

russ

This is a good place to start, you'll pick up a lot of good advice by
seeing what others have done (and doing it, or not!),

http://www.users.waitrose.com/~ianclare/links.htm

and as you'll see there isnt a 'standard' route. The CTC have 3 routes,
which are probably the closest to a standard anyone has come up with, and
there are also books you can buy with very detailed routes, and I suspect
our route, fully mapped down to the smallest lane, would be available for
a small charity fee (??Rob??) ....note, our route was designed to minimise
hills so its not just any old route:-)

Your choice of route may well be influenced by whether you will be
prebooking accom (and of what type, for example B&B or Hostel) or just
chancing it, and/or will you be camping, and if so 'rough' camping. or on
sites?

Enjoy, we did.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

I did it last year going north. If (a) you aren't bothered which end to
start and (b) you are getting there by train - then choose the furthest
as you may benefit from bigger discount on pre-booked ticket. I got to
Penzance for £16 (2 weeks pre-booked) and back from Wick for £110
bought on the day.
For maps I tore pages from the AA road atlas which fold into a
convenient map case on top of an Ortleib bag. I found out later that
the similar Phillips Atlas is better as it shows campsites, which would
have saved a bit of bother.
I did one of the CTC quieter routes with an island variation -
Ardrossan - across Aran - Claonaig/Oban/Mallaig - Armadale/Kyle of
Lochalsh/Dingwall etc avoiding Glasgow and A9 or A82

cheers

Jacob

"John Burns" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

The prevailing winds tend to be from the south west. So doing it from
Lands End and going north is probably easier.

Only if the prevailing winds are the ones that occur when you are riding,
and if the prevailing winds are SW in May-Sep(most likely time for a E2E) ,
as opposed to averaged across the year.
I think its down to luck and you should choose other criteria such as route,
hill profiles, ease of getting to the start and back from the end (generally
easier to get back from LE unless you live pretty far N), whether you want
an easier start or a hilly one, etc. On our 17 Southbound days we had
significant headwinds on only 2, maybe 2 1/2 days. Plus plenty of accounts
on the net from LEJOGers complaining 'why are there all these headwinds, I
was told I'd be blown to J'oG' :-)

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

thanks

russ

I can email you the 1492km of fairly direct LEJOG route I took
earlier this year - it consists of 4 pages of directions condensed via
Autoute from tips picked up around cycling newsgroups/forums. If you
have a broadband connection I can also email you about 80+ pages of
the maps (at 1:100,000).
I discovered the best bits of the route to be those roads that
followed river valleys (no steep hills!) and the quiet B roads that
paralleled trunk roads for miles.
....And prevailing winds or not, I'm going JOGLE next time.

Pete Connors
--
mono<losethis>treme@ntl<andthis>world.com

I did it last year going north. If (a) you aren't bothered which end to
start and (b) you are getting there by train - then choose the furthest
as you may benefit from bigger discount on pre-booked ticket. I got to
Penzance for £16 (2 weeks pre-booked) and back from Wick for £110
bought on the day.

It highly recommended that you book your bike and ticket from Wick or Thurso
in advance as Scotrail are very strict about their two bike limit. My
transport to Penzance was effectively free as we had our family holiday in
Cornwall before I set off. My Thurso - Leeds ticket was £130.

For maps I tore pages from the AA road atlas which fold into a
convenient map case on top of an Ortleib bag. I found out later that
the similar Phillips Atlas is better as it shows campsites, which would
have saved a bit of bother.

The Philips Atlas is very good for showing the locations of campsites but
there are one or two innacuracies where campsites have closed or are caravan
only sites. Not too much of a problem if you are willing to rough camp. A
bit of a problem if the next camp site is 20 miles away.

I did one of the CTC quieter routes with an island variation -
Ardrossan - across Aran - Claonaig/Oban/Mallaig - Armadale/Kyle of
Lochalsh/Dingwall etc avoiding Glasgow and A9 or A82

The CTC has three routes which it supplies free to its members or charges
around £4 to non members.

In the first instance I'd get the Phillips Road atlas 1:144000, 2.25 miles
to the inch and pencil in some routes. Also consider what your objectives
are. Do you just want to get to the other end as fast as possible or do you
want to take in the scenery, some tourist attractions such as the cycle
museum at Camelford....highly recommended. I had the luxury of having a
three and half week window of opportunity though I used only three weeks of
it. Having a tighter schedule may restrict your choices.

One thing to remember/take note of...there is a cycle path over the old
Severn Road Bridge which saves a ride to Gloucester to cross the river. You
also then have a wonderful ride through the Wye Valley - absolutely
stunning.

I loved the experience and wouldn't want to repeat the ride as I don't think
I'd be able to recapture that wonderful feeling and sense of achievement of
a first time completion. I'm doing the Channel to Med next year or to use
the favoured letter/number/letter nomenclature M2M (Manche to Med) to add to
my W2W and C2C

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 20:21:07 GMT, Pete Connors <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

thanks

russ

I can email you the 1492km of fairly direct LEJOG route I took
earlier this year - it consists of 4 pages of directions condensed via
Autoute from tips picked up around cycling newsgroups/forums. If you
have a broadband connection I can also email you about 80+ pages of
the maps (at 1:100,000).
I discovered the best bits of the route to be those roads that
followed river valleys (no steep hills!) and the quiet B roads that
paralleled trunk roads for miles.
...And prevailing winds or not, I'm going JOGLE next time.

Pete Connors

Autoute? That should read Autoroute!
--
mono<losethis>treme@ntl<andthis>world.com

Quoted message said:

It highly recommended that you book your bike and ticket from Wick or Thurso
in advance as Scotrail are very strict about their two bike limit.

They laid on a man in a white van last year to carry bikes to Inverness
by road so they had plenty of room. If they still do it I'd check dates
and train times.
Staple diet was all day breakfasts. Best of whole journey was at
Houston's guest house in Wick (not sure of the name but something like
that). It's a cafe too - you don't have to stay there.
Worst was at Pizza restaurant at Tarbert (Kintyre) - good value for
money but disgusting - an "All day Breakfast Pizza" about a yard across
covered in baked beans, several runny fried eggs, bits of sausage,
bacon, mushroom, black pudding, fried tomatoes THEN covered in
mozerella all warm and sticky like chewing gum. With fried bread on the
side.
Ate it all though.
cheers

Jacob

"vernon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

snip

Quoted message said:

I loved the experience and wouldn't want to repeat the ride as I don't
think
I'd be able to recapture that wonderful feeling and sense of achievement
of
a first time completion. I'm doing the Channel to Med next year or to use
the favoured letter/number/letter nomenclature M2M (Manche to Med) to add
to
my W2W and C2C

Be interested to know your M2M route plan - I'm planning the same thing for
June-ish next year

RobG

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It highly recommended that you book your bike and ticket from Wick or Thurso
in advance as Scotrail are very strict about their two bike limit.

They laid on a man in a white van last year to carry bikes to Inverness
by road so they had plenty of room. If they still do it I'd check dates
and train times.

Here's the van that took our two bikes.

Through [censored]-ups Scotrail had actually informed the driver that we had
six bikes between the two of us. Don't ask me why.

John B

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It highly recommended that you book your bike and ticket from Wick or Thurso
in advance as Scotrail are very strict about their two bike limit.

They laid on a man in a white van last year to carry bikes to Inverness
by road so they had plenty of room. If they still do it I'd check dates
and train times.

Here's the van that took our two bikes.
http://freespace.virgin.net/jpb.design/scotrailvan.html

Through [censored]-ups Scotrail had actually informed the driver that we had
six bikes between the two of us. Don't ask me why.

John B

Quoted message said:

i want to do the lands end to john ogroats( or the other way round).
any advice on the best way to go (good quiet roads) without going too
far out of my way. is there a standard route?

Look for places where a motrorway or dual carriageway has been built
but the superceded roads are stil, in place carrying only local
traffic.
For example there are pleasant local roads alongside the A30 most
of the way between Okehampton and Exeter. Then the B3181 follows the M5
north from Exeter. The motorway is usually not close enough to be
obtrusive.
Further north the old A6 south of Carlisle has been superceded by
the M6 and carries litle traffic.This approach gives quiet roads while
still taking a fairly direct route.
I would also second Vernons comment about using the Severn Bridge/Wye
valley route. Great scenery and light traffic.
For mapping I used Ordnance Survey 1:250,000 routefinder maps. A
big enough scale to cover the route in about 5 maps. And enough detail
everywhere except cities and Cornwall.
I would consider getting maps or detailed directions for the main
cities.
Having said that I didn't have them muddled through with the 1:250,000
maps and only got a bit lost in Bristol. A local cyclist who I asked
for directions guided me for about 3 miles and left me with good
directions towards the Severn bridge.
Iain

Quoted message said:

Be interested to know your M2M route plan - I'm planning the same thing

for

Quoted message said:

June-ish next year

I'm planning to start planning in the new year ;-)

Vernon